Citizen Kane (1941)

classy boy cinema

    i was imprisoned in a private prep high school for 3 years of my adolescence. i witnessed firsthand the institution of breeding business bros and hustle culture toxic men who relished in the aesthetic of the chiseled, rich, suit-wearing cishet white man. citizen kane embodies this spirit, whether it be in critique or in hypocritical celebration. the ultimate message of the film is the emptiness of affluence, sure, but how does citizen kane arrive there? does it do so with grace? does it do so in a way that isnt plagued by the racist misogynistic bar of cinematic quality during 1941? 

    no!

    ill delve into that later tho. i do wish to highlight a myriad of storytelling and filmic qualities within this movie that i have to admit are still compelling. the cinematography of gregg toland especially. there's a lot of shots that are pretty breathtaking compositionally. here are a few of my favorites:

    i think if anything the cinematography is far and beyond the most cativating element of this film. it took hollywood a good like 2 decades to catch up with the consistent inventiveness of a lot of these shots. characters are blocked and framed in very broad ways from very obtuse angles. the film has great use of characters moving around in the frame to emphasize the emotions of the scene, like when characters walk away from the camera, becoming smaller, to illustrate something like their waning confidence or something.

    i enjoy also how the film positions the characters whose perspectives we are supposed to view the scenes from. take the second screenshot, we are viewing this discussion between thatcher and kane from the perspective of bernstein since this is a flashback. so, the camera is positioned behind bernstein where bernstein is tucked into the left side of the frame, almost as if to become a part of it. from within this newly crafted frame, kane and thatcher converse accordingly. very clever!

    as far as the storytelling goes, i can say i enjoy a few things about it:

• the cliche newsreel is a good introduction, especially in the way it's halted abruptly and smash cuts away to the smoky theatre full of informal chaps reviewing the thing. sets the tone for how this film breaks away from the filmic status quo of the time.
• the film is structurally well made. the unraveling of the past rather than the future is a storytelling model that has always fascinated me. the dialog feels very natural and there are some lines that do stick with me.
• the ending is good. spoiler warning but rosebud is the sled he had as a child and this is only revealed as blink at the end and it will forever be a mystery to everyone in the story. its a really profound way of articulating the paling fulfillment of kane's "success" when compared to his humble rural childhood from which he had been kidnapped. i like that it's something that nobody will know about him.

    now with all this said... i still think this film falls flat in a lot of ways. firstly, the critique the film has on financial success is incredibly weak and too forgiving of the wealthy for me to get behind. it comes from a place of sympathizing with kane, the rich reckless asshole that used money for his own selfish causes from beginning to end. and like okay sure, the film makes a note of this in the form of leland confronting kane in like the second act:

LELAND: You talk about the people of the United States as though they belonged to you. When you find out they don't think they are, you'll lose interest. You talk about giving them their rights as though you could make a present of liberty. Remember the working man? You used to defend him quite a good deal. Well, he's turning into something called organized labor and you don't like that at all. And listen, when your precious underprivileged really get together - that's going to add up to something bigger than - than your privilege and then I don't know what you'll do - sail away to a desert island, probably, and lord it over the monkeys.

    but my issue in the film is that we never really SEE the working man, the ones that kane takes advantage of constantly. we only watch kane's transformation into a sad shitty old man and this is where we are expected to derive our emotional investment. this gripe is very transparently dependent on my own political stance, but i think thats fine because this is a very political film. the rich are greedy and selfish and terrible for as long as they remain rich, end of story. much in the way leland articulates it, holding onto wealth is going to always be at the expense and exploitation of the lower-class.

    citizen kane has its cake and eats it too. the emotional highs of the film still relish in the glitz and glamour of upper-class life. take for example the dance number where a bunch of conventionally attractive white women are singing a song about how great kane is. this scene is made out to be a highpoint for kane and for the story in general, and yet its just kane being a douchebag and sexually harassing dancers as if that makes him fun and quirky and admirable. its as if the problem in the film isnt that kane is rich, its the way he USED his riches by the end. which is strange because doing something like building your private island (something the film illustrates as sad and terrible bc kane is building it to fill the emptiness and loneliness in his soul) is fundamentally the same brand of evil to me as curating a dance number in your name and taking over a newspaper business because it "would be fun".

    that reminds me, one scene in particular stuck with me from about 23 minutes in, kane rejects the inheritance of gold mines and oil companies and other fortunes and only accepts the new york enquirer as his proper inheritance as he thinks it would be fun. he rejects what is posed as the one of the biggest inheritance ever to instead use only a partial amount of it to do his own thing. i feel like this is how kane is positioned as "one of the good rich people" in the beginning of the movie. like the scene where he's taking over the enquirer with all of his rebellious headstrong ideas much at the ire of the old curmudgeon boss. kane is supposed to be charming here but from my perspective, this amounts to nothing more than him coming across as an entitled asshole. he's not a scamp, he's not an underdog, he's a privileged piece of shit from the start, which is something i feel as though isnt the films intent. and if it is, it sure as hell isn't enjoyable to watch.

    the second intended emotional high in this film is kane's love afair. which is, of course, him cheating on his fucking family with a 22-year old that he frequently calls "young lady". he even makes a point at saying 22 is "a ripe old age" even though the dude, according to the timeline of the film, is at least fucking 60. SIXTY!!! that's fucking gross and creepy!! whats even the point of that? the extent of their relationship is kane being manipulative and abusive which yes IS the point which ill admit is handled fine (although it still gives kane FAR too much sympathy i think), but the beginning of their relationship is painted as charming and heartwarming despite all the external circumstances that make it completely and unobjectionably fucked.

    despite all its filmic innovations, citizen kane doesnt really overcome the handicap that is its ancient moral compass and wimpy social commentary. it's a novel watch if your interested in the history of american cinema or if you're enticed by some really cool cinematography. too bad the cinematography was wasted in elevating a story that is unapologetically 80 years old and written by a wealthy white misogynist.

FINAL SCORE:

5 / 10